COVER FEATURE

Delhi Declaration
All India Left Coordination

(Adopted at All-India Left Convention sponsored by CPI(ML)(Liberation), CPM Punjab, Lal Nishan Party (Leninist) Maharashtra, and Left Coordination Committee, Kerala, and held at Constitution Club, New Delhi on 11 August 2010)

Recent years have been witness to an aggressive US imperialism pushing the world into renewed war and occupation as well as an unprecedented financial crisis. In the name of globalisation, imperialism has intensified attempts to appropriate and exploit the natural and human resources of the developing world, but while accentuating exploitation and disparities, globalisation has also led to intensification of all the inherent contradictions of global capitalism and new waves of popular anti-imperialist resistance the world over.
The Indian ruling classes have adopted a strategy of integrating India into this US-led imperialist order on economic as well as strategic plane. Reckless implementation of pro-imperialist, pro-corporate policies – coupled with the pro-landlord agrarian strategy being pursued since Independence – by the Indian ruling classes has pushed the country into alarming depths of an all-round crisis marked by relentless rise in prices, chronic mass hunger, widespread unemployment and rampant corruption. Even as tens of millions of the country’s poorest people reel under starvation, the debt-trap-turned death-trap continues to claim the lives of crisis-ridden peasants in their hundreds and thousands. Amidst systematic loot and siphoning of the country’s wealth and precious resources, the working people are being relentlessly exploited, displaced and dispossessed in the name of ‘development’.
The recent farcical verdict on the world’s biggest industrial genocide which happened a quarter century ago in Bhopal has unmasked a most reprehensible and thoroughly corrupt nexus among state power and corporate power undermining every principle of justice and human and national dignity. Meanwhile, the growing incidence of oppression of dalits and women and the shocking spectacle of ‘honour killings’ in the National Capital Region and its surroundings point to an ugly social reality beneath the gloss of glamourised and globalised development.
While the Indian people are seeking answers to these maladies and alternatives to these disastrous anti-people policies and the corrupt and criminalized political culture, the ruling classes and their parties, whether in power or in opposition, are making a clamour for greater liberalization to give more concessions to capital and a harder state to unleash more repression and restrictions on the people.
Against this backdrop, four fighting organizations of the Left, viz., CPI(ML)(Liberation), CPM Punjab, Lal Nishan Party (Leninist) Maharashtra, and Left Coordination Committee, Kerala, have resolved to come together and form an All-India Left Coordination with a view to strengthening the Left movement in the country.
While pursuing the goal of a countrywide Left resurgence, the AILC will focus on the following key areas of a democratic agenda:

Resisting the whole gamut of neo-liberal pro-corporate pro-imperialist policies being followed almost without exception by all governments at the Centre and in the states, and fighting for an immediate halt to the ongoing spree of disinvestment/privatization measures and for curbing penetration of FDI in key sectors of our national economy and other sectors of strategic/national importance,
Opposing Indo-US strategic partnership and growing subordination of Indian foreign policy to the global hegemony of imperialist forces, US imperialism in particular; promoting friendly relations, especially people-to-people ties, with neighbouring countries, and uniting with the struggles of the peoples of the world against globalisation, war and imperialist machinations,
Fighting for an alternative path of self-reliant and people-centred development as against the present imperialist-dictated, corporate-driven and big capital-led ‘profit-centred development’ resulting in relentless rise in prices, growing hunger and unemployment, sharp regional and social inequalities, landgrab, displacement, resources-grab/deprivation and serious environmental degradation – an alternative that would promote relatively more egalitarian and employment-intensive and less energy-, resources- and capital-intensive path of development,
Fighting for a comprehensive policy regime ensuring fundamental rights to food, shelter, education, healthcare, basic amenities, work and social security for all,
Fighting against every facet of agrarian crisis, for adequate protection of Indian agriculture from the adverse WTO diktats, for scrapping of SEZ Act 2005 and Land Acquisition Act, 1894, for thorough-going implementation of land reforms and promotion of small peasant-centred agricultural development,
Launching struggles for the nationalisation of wholesale trade of foodgrains and for creation and strengthening of a Universal Public Distribution System (PDS) for essential commodities of daily use as well as for subsidised agricultural inputs and automatic inclusion of all agricultural and other rural workers, small peasants, artisans, unorganised and contract workers in the BPL category,
Resisting the growing state-led assault on democracy, fighting for a democratic political solution of the long-standing problems of Kashmir, North-East and the Maoist insurgency, for scrapping of draconian laws like Armed Forces Special Powers Act and Unlawful Activities Prevention Act, disbanding of Salwa Judum, and halt to Operation Green Hunt and anti-minority witch-hunt in the name of combating terrorism,
Resisting communal violence, and caste and gender oppression and fighting for minority rights and affirmative action for development of deprived sections within minority communities, and the rights and dignity of dalits, adivasis, women and all marginalized sections,
Fighting for labour rights for all sections of workers, especially the right to living wages, job security, universal health and social insurance, trade union rights including mandatory recognition through secret ballot and democratization of the workplace/industrial relations, adequate protection for migrant workers and unorganized workers including agricultural labour, and against contractualisation, outsourcing, hire-and-fire, and indiscriminate privatisation which are hallmarks of the neoliberal offensive;
Promoting the women’s movement against patriarchy and oppression, to struggle for gender equality, justice, and women’s dignity, as well as equal rights and opportunities in society as well as in the workplace; resisting violence both within and outside the home; challenging obscurantist practices that demean women; resisting all attempts to curb women’s freedom in the name of upholding tradition or culture; demanding speedy legislation against sexual harassment in workplaces, ‘honour’ killings and sexual violence, as well as for 33% reservation in Assemblies and Parliament.
Promoting the student-youth movement to secure ‘right to education and employment’, demand a Common School System to ensure schooling of high quality for all, and resist commercialization and pro-imperialist restructuring of education and denial of democratic rights to the student community,
Promoting people’s cultural awakening against the corporate cultural invasion that denigrates women and working people, the feudal culture of ‘honour killing’ and various retrograde social and cultural practices that seek legitimacy in the name of tradition, fighting for democratization of social, professional and inter-personal life and supporting the progressive democratic aspirations of the intelligentsia.
The AILC will strive to build a countrywide movement over these issues while also fighting for the resolution of various pressing local problems.
The AILC rejects all kinds of fundamentalism, terrorism and national/sub-national chauvinism and upholds the values of democracy, secularism and social progress in every sphere of national life
Within the Left movement, AILC will fight against the trend of class collaboration and rightward drift and degeneration while rejecting the line of Left adventurism/anarcho-militarism.
To advance the Left-democratic agenda and strengthen the Left and democratic movement, the AILC will work consistently for broader Left unity and seek cooperation with various democratic forces including individual activists.
The formation of the AILC marks only a modest beginning and we appeal to all activists and well-wishers of the Left and democratic movement to join and help us in this endeavour.